What is Project ECHO

Project ECHO: A Revolution in Medical Education and Care Delivery

Time—you can hear it ticking away. The inevitable pressures on primary care providers reduce the amount of time that practitioners have for delivering thoughtful, compassionate, evidence-based patient care. Meanwhile, patient populations are becoming increasingly complex to manage. In this environment, where can primary care providers turn to be able to provide the needed specialty care directly to patients in their own practices?

We think Project ECHO® can help. By connecting with a subspecialty team of experts and building a community of practice via telemedicine, primary care providers can increase knowledge, mastery that will inform their practice and benefit their patients.

Project ECHO® (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes) developed at the University of New Mexico, is a lifelong learning and guided practice model that revolutionizes medical education and exponentially increases workforce capacity to provide best-practice specialty care and reduce health disparities. The heart of the ECHO model™ is its hub-and-spoke knowledge-sharing networks, led by expert teams who use multi-point videoconferencing to conduct virtual clinics with community providers. In this way, primary care doctors, nurses, and other clinicians learn to provide excellent specialty care to patients in their own communities.

Link to Project ECHO Institute Website